


Unstopptable

by cruciel



Category: Honou no Mirage (Mirage of Blaze) (anime)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-14
Updated: 2005-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruciel/pseuds/cruciel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dashes it away, swears that it's the sea, it can't be his tears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unstopptable

**Author's Note:**

> Mirage of Blaze belongs to Mizuna Kuwabara.

Kagetora cannot rest. Restless, he cannot stop. It’s the fate of the child of war, engaged in an eternal battle.

_Fight._

Running out of breath, running out of chances.

Exorcism is not an option; they’re keeping him hemmed in from all sides, attacking randomly to throw him off guard and never to finish his chanting. Gasping, he turns round. Too late; the dirty crimson power blazes in front of his eyes.

_Run!_

His head screams and the bruised body obey, feeling the hostile missile graze the back of his neck. Just in time. Dazed, the fingers that over brush the spot come away sticky-wet from sweat and freshly drawn blood.

_Yuzuru would worry,_ he thinks absently-

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, KAGETORA?” Chiaki’s angry voice shakes him back to life. “DON’T SLOW DOWN, YOU GOT A JOB TO DO!” A flash of chilling déjà vu at the angry roar; Nagahide’s rebukes at a still green warlord—

“-so young and green that you can’t even be used as firewood!” 

Disgusted back then, disgusted even now.  Still not perfect. But getting there.

_Learn._

The fuel pumping through the roar of the powerful machine that he straddled across the highway- another day, another mission- feels uncannily like the shift of living muscle under him, pounding the sandy ground, straining at his reins, snorting furiously when he wanted to go faster.  He can just barely hear it above Haruie’s mocking laugh as she rides ahead. Now, and before, when she’d challenge him for a race. He’d only ever beaten her once. The rest of the time he got a good look at the long, unbound brunette hair, whipping behind in the wind.

_Ride._

Tearing through that hatefully balmy night, his palm still stinging from slapping Naoe’s face away.

_Anywhere but here, where that…God, what did I do, was he pretending all along, you fool, you fool!_

The salty spray from the sea was especially strong, smothering him, flooding his mouth. He dashes it away, swears that it’s the sea, it can’t be his tears. Kagetora doesn’t cry. Hasn’t cried since…since…

_Run, Run, Run._

Naoe had tried to stop him once before, tried to trap him. Outraged grief at the defilement of Minako’s innocent body and soul, had only just been ousted the fury at the insolent man trying to bind Kagetora in the same vessel of shame. Two wrongs can’t buy forgiveness, and Kagetora had run out of mercies by then. As he lay dying within Oda’s Absorption seal, Kagetora knows that the only thing that has sustained his battered spirit with enough energy to possess another was the anger and the will to never to let anyone stop him again. Ever.

_Don’t think._

And so he dashes through the fog thickened night, light and transparent as the air, eyes keen as the January wind, pale flame burning, just visible through thick forest. The tiger is hunting. Running, always running.

_Don’t look back._

It’s the fate of the war-child, they said; fated and inescapable.

It’s no wonder that Naoe can’t catch him.

Ever.


End file.
